[K12OSN] evolution outbox broken - Resolved (kind of)

[Les Mikesell]

On Fri, 2005-02-25 at 11:55, Gavin Chester wrote:

>  > After installing k12ltsp 4.2.0 I seem to have IP/mailbox conflicts
>  > that this newbie doesn't know where to start looking to solve.  When I
>  > try to send an email (even to myself) evolution is trying to use a POP
>  > server on my local machine despite correct settings I have given to
>  > all mail accounts to use my dialup ISP's mail server.
>  > The mail delivery times-out with the error:
>  > RCPT to <k12osn at redhat.com> failed.  Requested action not taken.
>  > Mailbox unavailable.  Could not connect to POP server 192.168.0.1
>  > (port pop3)
>  > Connection timed out.
>  >
>  > I have checked the mail settings and there is no reason I can see for
>  > it to be trying to use that local IP of my machine.

Evolution lets you configure 'sending mail' separately for each
account you add.  If your linux box has sendmail configured to
send directly or relay through your ISP's mailer you can let all
accounts send with sendmail or to localhost - or to your ISP's relay
instead.  Your error message only makes sense if you checked the
'server needs authentication' box and picked 'pop-before-smtp' from
the authentication types.  However, once you have an undeliverable
item in the outbox it will hang there until you delete it or change
the sending method to something that works. 

> YAY! I've kind of got this solved and don't have to send from Hotmail 
> anymore :-)))
> 
> I was able to resolve this issue by downloading and installing 
> Thunderbird to use instead of Evolution.  As soon as I fired off an 
> email there were NONE of the delivery problems that I had with Evo. 
> Weird. That exercise proves that my original problem was just with Evo. 
>   Anyone else had problems with the latest version of it that came with 
> the K12LTSP 4.2.0 isos?

I normally use an earlier version, but fired that up to test with
no problems.  You probably just have a configuration problem.

> I guess I'll go through the exercise of migrating all my old mailboxes 
> to Thunderbird.  Like I needed the extra work. I guess I was also 
> dismayed about Evo being picked up by Novell as a paid product anyway :-(

I thought they released it all - even the exchange connector, as free
open source.  Anyway if you are going to use different mailers a good
approach is to run IMAP on your server:
  chkconfig --level 345 dovecot on 
  service dovecot start
Then configure your 'Receiving Mail' /server type as IMAP for an
account.  You will be able to select mail from any other account and
drag it into folders you create on the IMAP server.  Any other mailer
using IMAP will be able to see the same folders, so you can use an
assortment of mailers and they will all see the same thing with no
more conversions.  If you keep more than a few thousand messages per
folder you should probably play with the dovecot options to use maildir
format.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
    les at futuresource.com